


The Flight of the Condor

by Amberdreams



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Gen, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, condorman, spy AU, super_disney
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-20
Updated: 2015-02-20
Packaged: 2018-03-13 22:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3398312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberdreams/pseuds/Amberdreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchester family was split asunder in 1961. Mary and eight-year-old Dean were caught on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain when the Berlin Wall went up overnight. </p><p>Now it’s 1986 and it feels like the Cold War will never end. Sam Winchester is Samuel Colt, the acclaimed creator of comic book hero Condorman. Sam is a dreamer, so immersed in his fantasy world he sometimes finds the line between reality and his own creations somewhat blurred. He doesn’t realize this is partly because his dreams are real and he’s actually having visions about his brother, Dean, who is one of the USSR’s best spy/assassins.</p><p>When Sam is invited to a big comic convention in StädtanderwandOsten in East Germany, he jumps at the chance. Not least because he thinks it might be an opportunity to find out what happened to his mother, Mary, and Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flight of the Condor

 

[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/15951337284)

  
_**Reuters Breaking News August 12 1961: Berlin blockaded.** _

_**…GDR closed off its borders last night, barricading all crossing points between East Berlin and the West. Implications of this action are yet to be fully understood…US reaction to this latest attempt by the Communist government of East Germany to stem the so-called ‘brain drain’ from the Soviet Block to the West…Germany further divided, families cut off …** _

Junior diplomat John Winchester scanned the ticker tape with a growing horror as it unspooled. The words - stark black on white - shaped his future in ways he never could have imagined yesterday, when his wife Mary had said she was taking their eight year old son, Dean, to visit a friend for a couple of days. A friend who just happened to be on the other side of the border in East Germany.

John grasped the tape and tore it off, crumpled it in his hand. Running outside, he joined a handful of Germans all headed in the same direction – towards the Brandenburg Gate. By the time he arrived, there were probably a hundred or more people gathered at the eastern edge of the Tiergarten, all of them frozen in shock at the sight of the barbed wire barrier that had sprung up overnight to blockade the gate. Through the openings in the triumphal arch, John could see the German Democratic Republican guards, all heavily armed. Beyond the guards was a handful of East Germans brave enough to have mirrored the actions of their Western counterparts and come to see the new restrictions for themselves.

He couldn’t see Mary and Dean among them, which was perhaps just as well, or he’d have been hard put to restrain himself from trying to climb through those huge coils of tangled wire to reach his wife and child. Only the thought of little Sammy waiting back in their ambassadorial quarters stopped John doing something reckless. Mary would never forgive him if he abandoned their youngest son, even if it was to rescue her and Dean.

John stared with burning eyes at the closed face of the Iron Curtain.

Mary Winchester was resourceful and brave, even more than she was beautiful. Surely if anyone would find a way to return to the West, it would be her?

:::

Five years later, John Winchester had practically given up hope of seeing his wife and son again. No word of their fate had ever come through the barrier between the two Germanys. John had tried every source he knew of, every contact he had in the secret services, but he’d come up with nothing to indicate whether his missing family was alive or dead. In their place was a vacuum, a black hole in John’s heart that Sam had never been able to fill.  When Sam was nearly nine years old, John was offered the position as Ambassador to the Sudan. Although he felt disloyal in the extreme leaving his station in Berlin, he thought it was time for him to try and move on. Sam deserved the best life John could give his one remaining child. He accepted the Ambassadorship, and neither of the free Winchesters returned to Germany for many years.

 

_**Friday November 3 1986: Los Angeles, CA** _

_Sometimes when there’s no urgency, Sam likes to let the change happen real slow, so he can savour every moment, every nuance. He loves how, from one breath to the next, he feels gravity lessen its hold as his bones hollow; how the skin tightens in the centre of his back in anticipation of his wings forming, the sensation of freedom when he eventually allows his wings to unfurl to their full span, and the way the air caresses each individual feather with the promise of flight._

_Tonight there’s no time for any such indulgence, and he can’t help the slight frisson of fear that runs through him as his wings sprout lightning-fast. He snaps them out with an audible crackle of pent-up power and runs forward. He launches himself off the tower without a thought, plunging steeply until the huge span of his wings catches a thermal and he’s lifted high, soaring above the city with every sense alert. There’s no time to linger and savour the beauty of seeing the city laid out below him, a sparkling multifaceted jewel in the night, not when Marishka the Red Bear is on the loose. Tonight he’s determined. This will be the moment when he and the Bear will come face to face and then they’ll finally see who will prevail. Will it be the evil might of Megalomania’s chained Bear, or the courage and ingenuity of the Free World’s Condorman?_

Unfortunately, this was not to be the night where Sam found out the answer to that burning question, because even as Condorman alighted and elegantly furled his wings outside the warehouse where the Red Bear had been sighted, Sam was rudely awakened by a loud banging on his door. A banging that was followed by yelling, and Sam knew he’d better get his act together pretty damn quick, or Mrs Whitchurch from number 42 was going to complain to their landlord about ‘noise nuisance’ again.

He groped on the floor for his jeans and dragged them on. Not bothering to put on a shirt, he staggered bleary-eyed to answer the door. He was always extra groggy after a Condorman dream. They left him feeling heavy and slow, as if he’d really just spent a few hours soaring above the city, on the prowl for danger, always searching for and never finding his elusive adversary, Marishka the Bear. At least when he got to write the story in his comics, Condorman had the satisfaction of kicking the Bear’s shapely ass.

He flung the door open and then swayed back just in time to escape Garth’s fist that was headed for another crack at the wood.

“Whoa, dude!” Sam protested, only to have Garth ignore him and barge his way into the apartment. His friend and self-styled manager immediately started talking, before Sam had even had time to close the door and shut out the curious gaze of his nosy neighbours.

“You know how you’re always babbling on about how awesome Yoo Yoothing is? Well, what would you say if I told you I’ve got you a paying gig where you get to meet him?”

“Oh, for… how many times do I have to tell you it’s Yu Yuding, moron, and she’s a woman, not a …wait…what? Get to meet her? In the flesh?”

But Garth was glaring at Sam with his skinny arms folded, and Sam realized perhaps he shouldn’t have called his best friend a moron until he’d at least heard all of what he had to say. Holding up an apologetic hand, Sam offered the one thing he knew was certain to placate Garth – coffee. Come to think of it, Sam could murder a cup himself.

Once Garth was mellowing over a steaming cup of the blackest, strongest coffee Sam could brew, he thought it was safe to open the conversation again.

“So tell me about Yu Yuding. How is that even possible? China would never allow her to visit the decadent West, surely?”

“That’s the beauty of this gig, Sammy boy!” Sam was so eager to hear that more he didn’t even bother to slap Garth down for calling him Sammy. Besides, slapping Garth was kind of like hitting a puppy. “Ever heard of Iron Con?”

“Yes, but they’d never allow Westerners entry, it’s strictly Iron Curtain only…wait, you got me into Iron Con? Oh my god, Garth, you’re a fucking genius!”

“I know, right? But to be fair, it was the Convention organisers who approached me. They’ve decided to open it up to a select few ‘dissolute’ Western artists, and you were top of their list!” Garth even waved some air quotes round dissolute, but Sam didn’t care what the Communist administration wanted to label him, not in the light of this amazing news.

“It’s fantastic! I can’t believe it. What should I take?”  Sam leapt to his feet and rushed over to his drawing desk by the window, shuffling through the pile of sheets for his latest Condorman adventure. “I’ve got some new ideas, I could start sketching those to show people. Will I have a panel? Or a Q&A session? Do they even get _Condorman_ comics over there?”

“Whoa, whoa, big boy,” Garth grinned indulgently as Sam flapped in helpless excitement. “It isn’t for a couple of weeks yet, you’ve got plenty of time to prepare. I thought with you usually being so reclusive you might have more reservations about an event like this. You know it’s going to make a huge splash – might even make international news, being such a rare opening up of the Eastern Bloc.”

Sam barely heard Garth. It was true, he usually eschewed publicity, and there were very few people who knew what Samuel Colt looked like, but this was something special, worth coming out for. So to speak.

“Oh man, this is Iron Con, how could I not go? I can’t wait to tell Jess. Samuel Colt, creator of Condorman, is going to be one of the first Western artists to go to Iron Con!”

Garth patted Sam on the back even while he rolled his eyes, as he always did at Sam’s lame pseudonym, which merely exchanged one gun for another. Sam thought it was pretty neat.

“I wish I could take Jess with me,” he said, feeling a sense of deflation at the thought of separation from his beautiful girlfriend and biggest cheer-leader. Garth shook his head.

“Man, don’t get your hopes up. I’ve already made some inquiries, and the Communist authorities are refusing to issue any more visas except for the artists themselves – _no entourages_ were their words. Entourages – I ask you, do I look like an entourage?”

Sam grinned and punched Garth’s skinny arm. “Nope, you look like a dork!”

Their conversation degenerated into an unseemly tussle, which left Garth, as always, the one lying on the floor with two hundred pounds of cartoon artist sitting on his stomach.

“It’s not fucking fair, you hairy great oaf, gerroff me,” Garth sputtered. “Anyhow, luckily I’d already got my visa before they announced the restrictions, so you are stuck with me.” Sam didn’t even notice that his earlier threatening funk had entirely dispersed. Garth had a way of lifting Sam’s mood, which was one reason they’d been friends for so long. He was glad Garth would be coming with him, though he was still going to miss Jess.

 

_**Friday November 21 1986: StädtanderwandOsten, German Democratic Republic** _

Советский Очень Секретная служба (Sovetskiy Ochen' Sekretnaya Sluzhba or Soviet Very Secret Service) agent Dean Akulov, code-name the Bear, formerly known as Dean Winchester, was on leave.

In spite of that, Dean couldn’t help casing the hotel for alternative exits and potential threats as he checked in. Habits of a lifetime, added to being one of the essential requirements of the job, he supposed. Being the SOSS’s premier assassin meant Dean didn’t often get downtime, and he really wanted to make the most of this weekend. There weren’t many of Dean’s colleagues who knew the infamous Akulov the Bear had a passion for comic books, let alone that he had a highly illegal and secret collection of American originals stashed away in a safe behind a small dingy bar in East Berlin.

When Dean had heard that this year’s Iron Con would include Western comic book artists for the first time, and that one of those attending was his all-time favourite artist, Samuel Colt, he’d decided then and there that nothing in this universe was going to stop him taking that weekend off and going to the convention. He’d given his ultimatum directly to the Head of the SOSS himself, Igor Kazakov, who had been surprisingly accommodating. With hindsight, Dean realised that Kazakov’s cooperation should have made him suspicious, but at the time, he was so full of childish excitement at the thought of meeting the creator of Condorman that he hadn’t given it a second thought. He was too busy wondering where he was going to get the right materials for his Condorman cosplay, because that just had to be done, right?

The convention was being held in StädtanderwandOsten’s premier hotel, a former Prussian Imperial hunting lodge the size of a small town, and replete with decaying grandeur. The hotel was rendered even more imposing because of its position, set right atop the edge of the thousand foot cliff over the river that separated East from West in this German Democratic Republic border town. StädtanderwandOsten overlooked its Western counterpart, turning its metaphoric Communist nose up at the decadent StädtanderwandWesten, the single town split into two just like Berlin had been, when the Iron Curtain came down back in ’61.

Although the main convention events didn’t start until tomorrow, the lobby was already heaving with comic book fans, and Dean was finding it really strange to hear so much English being spoken so openly this side of the Iron Curtain. Of course, Dean himself was fluent in English, German, and Russian. He could even muster enough French to pass as native of Alsace at a pinch. In his early years, his mother had made sure that he retained knowledge of his American roots, while also being careful to train Dean to hide just how much of him was still ‘contaminated’ by the West.

Dean grew up fucking awesome at dissembling; he was so good that even Igor Kazukov trusted him enough to send him on missions on the other side of the snappily titled Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart. The GDR government were nowhere near as poetic as Westerners, and Dean really preferred to call it the Iron Curtain. Dean was well aware that the SOSS’s trust was less to do with his ability to lie convincingly and more to do with the fact that Kazukov had Mary Winchester locked up in a cell in a secret location only a few highly placed SOSS officials knew about.

Mary had been taken away when Dean was only eleven years old. From that moment forward, his mother’s plight was all the incentive Dean needed to follow every direction that the Head of the SOSS gave him, and to keep him returning after each mission was complete. The temptation to defect to the USA, to return home to try and find his dad and his little brother was always there, but he couldn’t act on it, not with his mother’s life at stake. Keeping Mary safe had been Dean’s prime directive since he’d become trapped inside East Germany all those years ago, leaving his Sammy and his father behind in West Berlin. _You look after your mom, now Deano,_ had been the last words John Winchester said to his eldest son, and Dean had taken them to heart. Kazukov knew it too, the bastard.

Dean signed the hotel ledger and took his room key, just catching the lift as the doors were closing. The other occupant shifted to make room for Dean and his two bags, nodding amicably in greeting.

“Which floor?” the man asked in English, one long finger poised over the floor buttons, and Dean looked up, and then up some more at his temporary companion. _Bozhe moi_ , but the man was ridiculously tall. And American – probably Midwestern – from the accent. Without thinking, Dean answered in English, sliding easily into another persona, as if he was on a mission.

“Thirteen,” he said, smiling and waving his key. It had a ridiculously heavy red tassel hanging from it, presumably to stop guests from walking off with it. “Hopefully not unlucky, huh?”

The big guy smiled back – beamed, really, dimples and all – and held out a huge hand for Dean to shake.

“Hey, I’m on thirteen too. So you’re American too, huh? That’s awesome. I’m Sam.” Dean didn’t bother correcting Sam. He could be from the good old US of A for the weekend, no problem. It was less of a lie than the truth in any case.

“Dean.”

Sam’s handshake was warm and firm, and Dean was starting to like the American already, even if he was in dire need of a haircut.

“So, you here for Iron Con?” Sam was obviously one of those talkative types, and this hotel’s lift must be as ancient as the building itself, as it was excruciatingly slow. Dean relaxed and settled in for a few minutes of being sociable. It made a pleasant change from killing people, and he was on vacation after all.

In their brief journey to the thirteenth floor, Dean enthused over Condorman and comics in general, admitted he was going to cosplay this weekend, refused to divulge his costume – _a man’s gotta have some mystery, right?_ – and basically did more honest talking about himself than he’d done in years. Something about this amiable giant encouraged sharing. In fact, as the lift door finally pinged in announcement of their floor and the two men disembarked, Dean realised that Sam had hardly had a chance to tell him anything about himself; and more to the point, that Dean _wanted_ to get to know Sam better. For the first time in – well, just about ever – Dean felt like taking a risk and forming a friendship with someone.

And that was dangerous.

Sam waved vaguely in the opposite direction to Dean’s room number. “My room’s down that way,” he said, a hopeful expression on his face. “Maybe you’d like to get a drink from the mini bar?” Dean forced himself to take a step back mentally and physically, and tried to ignore the way Sam’s face fell. “Nah, man, I’m whacked. I’ll just unpack and grab some shut eye before the chaos begins.”

Dean turned and walked away quickly, not looking back when Sam called after him “See you around?” He simply raised a non-committal hand and threw a brief “sure” over his shoulder, glad when he was able to disappear out of view as the corridor turned to the right. He was even happier he had cut off this budding idea of friendship when he entered his room to find Igor Kazukov sitting in an armchair by his bed. Fuck.

“I’m on leave,” Dean said, dumping his bags on the bed. Kazukov leant back, casually crossing his legs at the ankle. The slimy bastard smiled, and Dean wanted to smash his smug face in. So, nothing new there then.

“Comrade Akulov, you and I both know that there are no holidays for any of us when Mother Russia needs us.” Kazukov produced a manila folder seemingly out of nowhere, placing it on the occasional table by the bed. “Your mission, agent. All the information you need is in here.”

Dean opened his mouth to protest, then closed it without bothering to say a word. One glance into Kazukov’s blank eyes told him any protest would be futile. He knew what was at stake, and it wasn’t his life he was worried about. He had no choice, none at all, if he wanted to keep his mother safe. That didn’t stop a shiver running down his spine when he registered the face in the photograph pinned to the front of the dossier. Well fuckity fuck, it was the tall guy from the elevator.

Turned out Sam-from-the-elevator was reclusive artist Samuel Colt, and for some reason, Mother Russia wanted the creator of Dean Akulov’s favourite cartoon character assassinated.

It was official. Dean’s life stank worse than a hundred year old jar of gherkins.

 

_**Saturday November 22 1986: 07:02 StädtanderwandOsten, Imperial Hotel. Iron Con II.** _

_Condorman lands silent as a feather behind the dark figure of the Red Bear. Finally he’s going to see the face of his mysterious foe, that infamous femme fatale and bête noir of the Free World. He wonders if she will be as beautiful as he had drawn her. He reaches out his hand to tear away the mask, only to reveal_ _– huh._

_That’s unexpected. Even in the non-logical world of the dream, Sam is nonplussed to see the chiselled cheekbones, firm, somewhat stubbled jaw, and wide green eyes of the guy from the lift._

_“What the… Dean?” Sam says. “What are you doing dressed as Marishka the Bear? Don’t you know she’s a woman?”_

_“What’s the matter, Sammy?” Dean says, and grins, teeth flashing white in the night. “Don’t you think I’m pretty?”_

_Then Dean steps forward and shoves at Sam’s chest and Sam is toppling backwards and falling, falling, falling into the bottomless darkness_ …

Sam woke with a start. That was weird, even by his own standards.  He must be more jetlagged than he’d thought. He stared at the fancy plasterwork ceiling for a moment, trying to shake off the unsettled feeling the dream had left behind.

He checked the clock – a couple of minutes past seven. It was early, but he was too wound up to sleep any longer. He was scheduled for autograph signing for most of the morning, but he was really hoping he’d get a chance to catch Yu Yuding’s panel and maybe get her autograph, or a handshake or something. He showered and dressed quickly, anticipation running through his veins like electricity, his dream momentarily forgotten.

He didn’t eat as much as he normally would at breakfast, as the butterflies in his stomach didn’t really mix well with bratwurst, pickled gherkins and scrambled egg. In fact, he wasn’t sure anything mixed well with pickled gherkins. He scanned the restaurant for the good-looking guy from the lift but there was no sign of him. Sam wasn’t sure why he was looking. After all, the guy – Dean – had blown him off in no uncertain terms last night. Dean had seemed so friendly to start with too. But there was something about that face, that voice, that spoke to Sam on some subliminal level that he didn’t understand. And of course, it had been very flattering to listen to Dean enthusing about Sam’s work, especially as Dean clearly had no idea who he was talking to. None of that explained why Sam had dreamed about him though.

He didn’t have long to brood about his mystery fan, as the Iron Con personal assistant assigned to him turned up with Garth just as Sam was finishing his coffee and ushered him off to the green room. Which was actually mostly blue and gold, not green at all, but it was equipped with several well-padded chaise longues, some uncomfortable-looking Germanic equivalent of Louis XIV chairs, and several ornate tables groaning under the weight of what appeared to be solid silver ice buckets full of Kirschers Pils. There were two middle-aged men with identical buzz-cut hair who had already deployed the bottle openers provided and were making inroads on the Pils, causing Sam to double check his wristwatch. Sure enough, it was still only nine thirty in the morning. The mere thought of drinking beer this early turned Sam’s stomach almost as much as the breakfast gherkins. Garth, on the other hand, was happy to accept a bottle from Buzz Cut #1, and settled down on one of the more comfortable chairs. It looked like Sam’s manager intended to stay there for the duration of the weekend.

“You don’t need me today, do you, Sammy? Ingrid here is going to look after your every need, after all, aren’t you, Inga?”

Ingrid shot Garth a classic East German look of disapproval that didn’t stop Garth wiggling his eyebrows suggestively, but did leave Sam withering in the expectation that she would be turning it on him next. Thankfully, when Ingrid turned her attention to Sam she smiled instead, which instantly transformed her rather broad face from intimidating shot-putter to helpful PA.

“It is Ingrid, not Inga, Mr Colt. But yes, I will take care of you this weekend. Anything you need, just ask.”

“Thank you, Ingrid. I may need your help translating for fans, my German is very rusty.” Garth gave a loud cough and Sam flushed. “Okay, I admit, it’s almost non-existent. But I do have a bit of Russian.” Sam didn’t add that the only reason he had learnt Russian was in case he ever got the chance to cross the border to search for his long-lost mother and brother. Not even Garth knew about that.  In actual fact, Sam’s Russian was pretty damn good, and his German wasn’t far behind, but for some reason, he felt more comfortable playing the innocent abroad, at least until he got his bearings.

Ingrid proved a godsend. She escorted Sam through the already crowded maze of corridors into the main hall, steering him unerringly to the section where his signing table awaited. He was both flattered and daunted to see that there was a queue forming for his table, even though there was still half an hour before his autograph session was supposed to start. The boxes of prints for autographs were stacked up next to the table, so it was Ingrid’s lethal-looking pocket-knife that opened the first box, and Ingrid who produced a handful of marker pens out of nowhere for Sam to use for his signings.

Looking at the number of people gathered behind the rope barrier, Sam was starting to wonder if he should have ordered more prints. He was delighted that many of the fans were in costume, and he’d already spotted several Condormen, two rather sexy-looking Red Bears and at least one Hurricane, in amongst the more obvious (and safer) Iron Curtain-approved favourites, like Petia Ryzhik.

Sam scanned the crowd, trying to spot Dean. As he poured a glass of water from the chilled bottle Ingrid had brought him, he pondered on coincidences. Funny he should run into another Dean while he was over here. He hadn’t told Garth, and he certainly never mentioned it to his father, but he’d booked a later flight for his return home, because he was hoping to spend a few days after the convention doing some detective work to see if he could find any trace of his long lost mother and brother. Of course the Dean he’d met in the lift was an all-American boy, so he couldn’t have anything to do with the Dean Winchester who must have been brought up in the GDR or the USSR – could he?

A hand thrusting a well-thumbed comic book under his nose interrupted his musing, and after that he was too occupied chatting to fans in relatively fluent Russian and less fluent German to have time to brood. He never stopped checking each face for Dean though – despite not being able to see much of some people beyond their various cosplay masks. He was impressed at the efforts many of them had gone to. Getting the right materials to create costumes for American comic book characters couldn’t have been easy, especially as the distribution of the comics themselves was semi-illegal and frowned upon by the authorities.

There was no sign of those intense green eyes, though. Sam refused to admit he’d even been looking, let alone that he was disappointed.

 

**_Saturday November 22 1986: 08:12 StädtanderwandOsten, Imperial Hotel. Iron Con II._ **

Dean picked up the manila folder and flipped it open, skim-reading to remind himself of the key facts he’d read over the night before, once Kazukov had left.

_SS File R:22/9/ZE18222/c_

_Samuel Colt, aged 21_ (Interesting…same age as Dean’s Sammy…coincidence, of course) _first published comic book December 1984 – The Birth of Condorman. Number of copies sold worldwide 1 million 235 thousand. Colt was flagged as a potential security breach by SOSS Cultural Watchdog Feb 1985, when correlation was made between plot element #12 and the foiling of the assassination of subversive politician Victor Valsilyev._

Dean read on with increasing interest.

There were several other instances where storylines in Colt’s comics seemed to follow too closely to real-life incidents, many of them correlating with detail from missions the Bear (the real Bear that is) had undertaken – successfully, Dean might add. It really did look like a security breech somewhere, though Dean couldn’t see how killing the artist would help. Surely the high-ups should be looking for the source, for whoever was feeding information to Colt.

Dean huffed under his breath. That Valsilyev job would never have been botched if they’d kept Dean on that assignment, instead of replacing him at the last minute with that incompetent moron, Kubrick. The real life version of the Bear hadn’t failed a single mission since he was sixteen. How could he fail when his mother’s life depended on his success?

He’d been killing so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to be clean.

 

Dean stared at Sam’s photograph and thought about strapping on the wings from his Condorman costume and throwing himself from the hotel roof, flying west to freedom. Letting Sam live. It would be so easy. The Bear’s attention to detail meant that every specification of his wing-suit was as functional as he could afford to make it; hell, it was even flame retardant.

He flung the folder down onto the floor by the bed, uncaring that the confidential contents spilled out onto the hotel carpet. Even if Dean decided to run away and let the SOSS kill his mother, it wouldn’t save Samuel Colt. Kazukov would be long gone, that slimy rat never liked to get his hands dirty, but for sure there would be at least one other SOSS agent here, as well as regular KGB and Stasi. If Kazukov wanted Colt dead, there was no way the young American artist was walking out of here alive. It would be better for Colt if it were Dean pulling the trigger. At least that way it would be quick, and as painless as Dean could make it.

 

Decision made, Dean made quick work of getting dressed in his costume. He’d designed it so that he could conceal weapons in the boots and sleeves, because an assassin was never truly off duty. He’d designed and made the wings himself so that they could be unfurled with just a flick of his wrist. They were super-lightweight, yet strong enough to carry a man… just in case. He went through every check with meticulous care, but all the joy had been stripped away as he zipped himself into the suit was still meticulous but joyless. What was the point of excitement when he was only going to kill the person whose skill and imagination the costume had been created to celebrate?

When he entered the overheated and buzzing atmosphere of the main hall, there was only room for one thought in Dean’s head, and that was looking for the right opening to dispatch Samuel Colt. Which was why Dean was irritated to find that Colt had the longest queue in the building waiting for his autograph, and then further annoyed when some _durak_ dressed as the Red Bear from Condorman tugged at his arm. Dean had no patience with this distraction. She was babbling away in Russian about something or other, Dean really didn’t care.

“Look, _dushen'ka_ ,” Dean said, brushing the hand from his arm as firmly and gently as he could, “I’m flattered that you like my gear, but…”

 

He stopped short, his mouth dropping open as he finally took a moment to look at the person who had accosted him. The comic book Bear was a glamorous, voluptuous red-haired chick. This person, as it turned out, was none of those things. The long auburn hair on closer inspection was revealed as an unconvincing wig, the shiny black bodysuit didn’t really do much to conceal the fact that the person inside it was actually rather well endowed in the lunch-box area, while flatter than two fried eggs in the chest region. Dean had to acknowledge that the guy did have killer blue eyes though. The costumed creature held out a decidedly man-sized hand and Dean shook it automatically. He knew he was staring but he couldn’t help himself. Seeing a man dressed in Marishka the Bear’s costume was – well, bizarre.

“I don’t believe in conforming to gender stereotypical norms,” the stranger said, clearly somewhat put out by Dean’s dumbstruck expression. “My name is Castiel, and I need to talk to you. Privately.” The man still spoke in Russian, so Dean replied in the same language.

“Right, well, that’s great, maybe some other time, if I swung that way. I’m a bit gender stereotypical myself. Nice costume by the way,” Dean said dismissively, his attention already elsewhere, as he turned back around to join the still-lengthy queue. However, the crazily dressed stranger – Castiel – clearly had no sense of self-preservation. He arrested Dean’s progress for a second time in so many minutes with a hand on Dean’s arm, but it was his next words, this time spoken in English, that stopped Dean dead in his tracks.

 

“I think you need to hear what I have to say, Dean Winchester. I have a message from your mother.”

Dean felt the chill wind of Siberia on the back of his neck at the sound of his real name, but he moved quicker than a thought, before his body could freeze from that memory of ice. He grabbed Castiel’s arm and dragged him out of view behind a wide pillar.

“What the hell are you playing at?” Dean hissed, while keeping a pleasant smile on his face in case anyone was watching. “You must know it’s not safe to talk here.” He raised his voice to a more conversational volume, glancing round casually as if everything was normal. “It’s so hot in these costumes, hey? Looks like the queue isn’t going to move that quickly, let’s go get some fresh air, shall we?”

 

He didn’t wait for Castiel to reply, or remove his tight grip on the other man’s arm as he moved them swiftly through the crowded hall and out into the hotel lobby. A rapid reconnaissance told Dean that the hotel entrance was too busy for the privacy they needed, and that left only one option open. He dragged Castiel into the lift, then up a service stairway that led to the roof, high up above the river cliff, where Dean could be pretty certain there were no listening devices, either human or mechanical. As an added precaution, he moved them behind a large chimneystack to ensure they were out of any line of sight from the service door before rounding on Castiel.

He didn’t waste time with niceties. “Explain.”

Castiel stared expectantly at Dean’s hand that was still tight round his arm, and Dean let go with a shrug. Castiel was so calm and unruffled by Dean’s rough treatment, it was unnerving, but he seemed willing to talk now. Dean pulled the hood of his costume down, and Castiel took the hint and removed the ridiculous wig. His dark hair was tousled, but a much less bizarre sight.

“I am an Angel, and we have been watching over you and your mother for many years.”

 

Great, a fucking delusional time-waster.

“Get out of here. Angels don’t exist. Don’t you think I’d have come across one of you before now if the stories were true? They are a wish-fulfilment fantasy for the desperate, a fairy tale for people who want to believe in happy endings. ”

“We are very good at staying out of view, Dean. How do you think our organisation survived Stalin and the regimes that have followed?”

“Fuck if I know and I don’t care. My mother has been imprisoned since I was eight years old, I haven’t been allowed to see her for the last two years – if you do exist, what good has your stupid underground organisation been to me and my family? And why come crawling out of the woodwork now to help me?”

“Why now? Because we have work for you, and because the man you’ve been told to kill is your brother.”

“What?” All the air seemed to be sucked from Dean’s lungs, as if he’d stepped into a vacuum chamber. Castiel was talking, but it was hard to distinguish the angel’s low rumbling words from the rushing of blood in Dean’s head. He tried to focus on the important facts – Samuel Colt was Sam Winchester, Dean’s long lost little brother. Kazukov was trying to get Dean to murder his own brother. By the time Dean had absorbed this news, Castiel had moved to another, equally devastating topic.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t do anything about Kazukov moving Mary to Preispodnyaya after your abortive attempt to get her out of Butugichag Gulag. It took us nearly a year to track her down, and when we finally found her, she was very ill. The Angels managed to get me into Preispodnyaya as a guard, but it was difficult for me to get close to her. Kazukov had her locked down tight, and of course, even when I did reach her, she was reluctant to trust me at first.”

Dean’s knees gave out and he slid to the floor, and not even the warmth of the chimney on his back could chase the cold out of his bones. He knew where this was going and he didn’t want to hear it. He ran a trembling hand over his face.

“I had to try and get her away from Butugichag.” Dean’s voice was quiet, he didn’t know if Castiel could even hear him but that wasn’t important, not really. He was talking more to his mother than to any listening ear. “The moment I found out Kazukov had sent her to Death Valley, I knew I had to do something. The uranium… but then they said they’d moved her though nobody was willing to tell me where, so I’d hoped…”

“I understand, Dean, but there was nothing you could have done. Even if you had managed to free her back then, the radiation had already taken hold; she had been exposed for too long.”

Dean tried to take a steadying breath through the growing pain in his chest, but it shuddered as he exhaled.

Mom. She had been the only family he had left, the one person in this world who loved him. He’d been tasked with protecting her and he’d failed spectacularly. It didn’t matter that he’d only been a child when he had been taken away from her. He’d had one job to do, and he’d failed his charge, and failed her.

There was no point in asking Castiel if Mary had suffered, hoping for platitudes, because Dean knew full well that radiation poisoning was not an easy death. The tight material of his Condorman suit felt suddenly constraining. His fingers tangled in the fastening at his throat and he tugged at the cloth that was choking him. Castiel was still talking, but that low voice was mere buzzing in Dean’s ears. He had to get a grip; he mustn’t give in to emotion now, because this news wasn’t merely about Dean’s grief. It was about the potential for freedom. And saving Sam.

But before Dean could get his mind straight, there was one important promise the Angel had made earlier that hadn’t yet been fulfilled.

Dry-eyed, Dean looked up at Castiel. “You said you had a message from my mother.”

:::

Sam’s hand cramped after the first couple of hundred autographs, and his face ached from smiling. In spite of the exhaustion, he was riding the wave of fan-love, and it felt amazing. He’d almost forgotten to check each Condorman to see if it was Dean, or to be disappointed when it wasn’t. When Ingrid finally called a break, he sat back and stretched out his back. He blushed when his stomach gave a loud rumble, but Ingrid laughed.

“Time for a visit to the Green Room,” she said. Sam stood up and stretched again, wincing as stiff muscles protested. Now he was standing, he realised his bladder was protesting too.

“Um, I think I need to freshen up first, if you don’t mind. Where are the restrooms?”

“Ja, ja, of course, I’m sorry! Come, follow me.”

Sam gave an apologetic wave to the people who he hadn’t got to sign for yet. Ingrid told him they would most likely hang around there, so that they’d be first in line when he returned. He was impressed by their dedication. He trailed along after Ingrid’s stocky figure through a quiet corridor at the back of the main hall, and saw with relief the sign indicating a men’s restroom. Sam’s need to relieve himself had become so urgent he barely heard Ingrid indicating she was going to the ladies’ room and would meet him back in the corridor in a few minutes. He rushed to the urinals and unzipped, allowing a loud sigh to escape as he finally let go. He nearly castrated himself zipping back up when a low voice rumbled in his right ear “Nothing better than a good piss, huh?”

Sam might have squeaked, though in an entirely manly fashion. He scrambled to fasten his pants before checking out at his surprise companion. It was Condorman, of course. He’d lost count of how many Condormen he’d seen today, but there had to have been at least eight of them. He had to be forgiven, then, for taking a few seconds to register the full lips and green gleam in the eyes of this version, and to remember why that voice sounded so familiar.

“Dean, oh hey. Man, way to give me a heart attack,” Sam exclaimed, embarrassed. This was so _not_ how he’d imagined reacquainting himself with his elusive lift buddy. He went to move towards the washbasins, only to bump into someone else. Someone who was practically standing on Sam’s left foot, making him jump all over again. “Um. Hi?’ Sam said, pinned by an uncomfortably piercing blue gaze. After a second unable to break free of that look, Sam’s eyebrows reacquainted themselves with his hairline as he took in the guy’s costume. Sam blinked twice before his brain confirmed that, yes, it was a man dressed as Marishka the Red Bear. It was a few moments more before Sam realised the blue-eyed man was holding out a hand for him to shake.

“I think I ought to, you know, wash my hands before we shake, mister…er?”

Dean snorted a laugh behind him, and Blue-eyes looked slightly disconcerted, though he thankfully stepped back to allow Sam to rinse his hands, then splash his face. The hotel had no air conditioning and the event hall had been sweltering. Sam nearly missed the next part of the conversation, distracted by the pleasant coolness of the water on his sweaty face. 

“My name is Castiel and we are here to save you, Sam Winchester.” It took a second for the strange cross-dressing Bear’s – Castiel’s – words to sink in.

“Hey, how do you know my real name? And wait a minute, what do you mean, save me – save me from what?”

It was Dean who answered this time, and the bluntness of his reply sent a chill through Sam’s body. “Save you from me.”

Dean offered Sam a towel with a grim smile. “Don’t worry, I’ve already decided not to kill you now.”

Dazed, Sam took both the towel – and the reassurance Dean handed to him – and obediently dried his face. Castiel’s expression was sombre, but Sam didn’t get any immediate sense of a threat from either of the two men, so he listened, transfixed, as Dean explained.

“Have you heard of the Soviet OSS? The Oчень Cекретная Cлужба? No? Not many people have, but I just thought perhaps…some of the stories you’ve written are pretty close to stuff that’s actually happened... Okay, never mind. You know about the KGB though, I expect. Well the SOSS are more ruthless, more deadly, and more secret, and I’ve been their foremost assassin since I completed my training at fifteen years old. The SOSS want me to end you, Sam, but I’ve had enough of killing. So me and my friend here are going to get you out of here before any of the other agents here realise what’s going on and decide to do my job for me.”

Castiel tapped Dean on the shoulder. “Haven’t you forgotten something?” he asked, head tilted. Dean scowled and muttered something Sam couldn’t quite catch. When Sam persisted in looking bemused, he said it again, louder. “Oh yeah, Mary Winchester was my mother too.”

Sam could feel his eyes get wider than he thought was physically possible. What with the boggling eyes and the way his mouth had dropped open, he was sure he looked like a beached fish. The fact that the most top secret and deadly organisation this side of the Iron Curtain wanted Sam dead was lost in the wake of Dean’s subsequent revelation about his identity. Sam had been hoping for a reunion with his missing family members for so long, and now his long-lost big brother was standing right in front of him. Strangely, Sam didn’t doubt for one moment that this really was his brother, even though the rest of his thoughts were a complete jumbled mess.

“You’re Dean Winchester? You’re my brother? But…that’s incredible!” And the implications were enormous, but Dean didn’t give Sam time to absorb it. Castiel had produced a large holdall from somewhere, and was kneeling down to unzip it. Dean shoved a bundle of material at Sam.

“Here. Put this on, quickly.”   
Sam shook the bundle out and raised an eyebrow. “Another Condorman costume? Really?”

It was Castiel who answered him; Dean just glared and gestured at Sam to get a move on. Sam hastily stripped down to his underwear, then hopped around trying to get his long limbs into the legs of the costume.

“It is difficult to look inconspicuous when you are so tall,” Castiel said, “but this suit will help in that regard. Hiding in a crowd, you understand? But it also serves another purpose. The material is deceptively strong, and will deflect most weapons. And these…” Sam looked up to see Castiel was holding out what looked like a jumble of wire and baking foil in one hand, and a set of black straps in the other. “…these are fully functional wings.”

Dean let out what could only be described as a gleeful cackle.

“ _O, klassno_! We are going to fly out of here, little brother!” To Sam’s surprise, Dean turned to Castiel and hugged him, something clearly the Angel was neither expecting, nor comfortable with, if his wide-eyed, rabbit-facing-a-snake expression was any indication. “You really are a fucking angel!” When Dean went on to pinch Castiel’s cheek as if the guy was a chubby child who’d brought his parents a homemade birthday card instead of an escape plan, Castiel’s expression morphed to outright disapproval.  Dean was undaunted.

His brother was crazy. Sam couldn’t get his head round the idea of having found Dean at last, let alone comprehend that once they ventured out of the washroom, the only things standing between him and certain death were his newfound brother and a mysterious dissident who was probably also at the top of someone’s hit list.

In a daze, Sam obediently fastened the set of straps around his torso and waist as directed, though he didn’t have a clue what their purpose was. There were two shoulder straps like suspenders, and the rest formed a triangle round and through his crotch, similar to a parachute harness. He might have squeaked slightly when Castiel pulled those ones tight.

“We need to get to the roof without being seen,” Dean said, as Sam tried to swallow down his inconvenient panic and concentrate. He didn’t want to be the dumb civilian in this story.

Meanwhile, Castiel was nodding in agreement with Dean’s assessment.

“Yes. With the height of the hotel itself added to the height of the cliff over the river, you should be able to maintain elevation long enough to cross over the border into Städtanderwandwesten, and still stay high enough to be out of range of most of the weapons the local guards carry.”

Dean frowned. “Damn. I wish we could wait for nightfall, or at least dusk, when the half light helps confuse the brain about what it’s seeing.”

“You can’t risk it,” Castiel said, and Sam finally pinpointed what had been niggling at him about the conversation – and it wasn’t fear of heights.

“Why do you keep saying ‘you’ not ‘we’, Castiel? Aren’t you coming with us?”

Dean stopped and looked at Castiel. “Good point, Sammy. Didn’t you bring wings for yourself, Cas? Kind of ironic, really, you being an angel and all.”

Castiel gave a small shrug. “My superiors have other work for me here,” he said, and a look of concern crossed Dean’s face. For a super spy-assassin, Sam was finding Dean rather easy to read, though he had the feeling he was missing something with all these angel jokes. Something to ask Dean about once they were safely on the other side.

“But you have a way out of here, right, Cas?”

The angel nodded. “Don’t worry, I am very good at disappearing.”

:::

The three men made it up to the roof without incident, Sam wondering somewhat guiltily whether Ingrid was worrying about his absence.  Which reminded him of something else. He stopped dead.  
“Wait! What about Garth?”  
Dean looked around, frowning. “Who?”

“My manager and friend, Garth Fitzgerald IV. I left him in the Green Room – will he be in danger too?”

It was Castiel who answered, coming back to coax Sam into motion again.

“Our intelligence didn’t give us reason to suspect that any of the other convention attendees were at risk, whether they were Westerners or not. I am certain your friend will be safe, and I promise we will get him word of your whereabouts as soon as you are across the border.”

Sam, reassured and excited, didn’t notice either Dean’s raised eyebrow or Castiel’s eagerness to get him ready for the jump.

The November air was sharp and bit into his flesh, making Sam glad the ridiculous costume came equipped with a hood. He pulled it up, tucking his unruly hair in, then stood passively while Cas fussed around behind him, fixing and adjusting his wings into place.

Wings! Sam was finally starting to believe this was happening, and that he was going to fly just like in his dreams, when he was rudely interrupted by a woman’s voice, and more ominously, the click of a gun’s safety coming off.

“And what have we here, then?” 

The woman was attractive, with long brown hair and very red lips, and she was smiling at Dean. A smile rendered deadly by the fact that she had not one, but two guns, both equipped with silencers, one trained on Dean and one on Sam. Cas was tucked in behind Sam’s bulk and for one moment Sam half hoped she hadn’t noticed the smaller man was there. Sadly, her next words dashed his hopes.

“That was a rhetorical question, by the way. You’re Samuel Colt, of course,” she said, barely glancing in Sam’s direction. All her focus was on his brother, and it was at Dean she aimed her remarks. “Dean Winchester, or should I call you Akulov? Mmm, or perhaps you prefer _The Bear_. And you must be little Castiel. Is Heaven missing an angel today?”

She laughed at her own joke, and Sam was annoyed to find that not only did she have a pleasant sounding laugh, but she also seemed to be in the know about the whole angel thing. Villains – or villainesses – in comic books always cackled, in his experience. It was kind of an essential characteristic for the evil antagonist. And how come he was the only one who failed to understand the angel references?

He felt Cas move out into the open, and without thinking Sam shifted to keep in between the angel and the woman. He vaguely remembered Cas saying something about his Condorman suit being bullet proof, and though he was sweating, and trembling with fear, he figured there were worse things than being a human shield. After all, Castiel must have a gun of his own, right? Surely he would take the opportunity to shoot her from behind Sam, given half a chance.

Dean, on the other hand, looked like the antithesis of their would-be assassin’s smug calm. Sam’s brother was red-faced and fuming.

“Bela,” he said, almost spitting out the name. “You’ve got a nerve, showing yourself after that debacle in Gdansk.”

Bela’s red mouth tightened. “Ah yes, Gdansk. Where _you_ left me to rot while you ran away. I haven’t forgotten that, Akulov.”

“You tried to sell me out, you bitch. If you got caught in your own web of lies, that was justice.”

“I spent two years stationed in Siberia, thanks to you, so I think I’ve paid my dues. Igor thinks so too, and he was _so_ right about not trusting you to see this job through. You are weak, Dean. Always were too soft-hearted to make a good agent.”

“Some of us believe that family is important, Bela. But you wouldn’t understand that, would you? After all, you were quite happy to murder your own father, weren’t you?”

Bela’s pretty face twisted into a snarl at Dean’s words, but her aim never wavered. Sam’s heart was beating so loud it was almost drowning out the conversation, because he could see Dean was edging closer and closer to Bela as they spoke. Clearly he was hoping to distract her, and Sam prayed that it was working, because aside from trying to shield Castiel, Sam didn’t have a clue what to do to help.

“I’m not the only one with Daddy issues, now am I, Dean? To be quite honest, I’ve no idea how you’ve managed to live this long, let alone acquire such a fearsome reputation.”

Then all hell broke loose. Dean took a step too close. Bela smiled as she fired both guns simultaneously. Sam didn’t see Dean go down because all the air punched out of him when the bullet hit his stomach. He staggered backwards with a breathless cry. Folded in half, Sam thought he must be dying. It took several precious seconds for him to realise that wasn’t the case, and that Cas had been right about the Condorman suit. It really was bulletproof.

Sam sat up gingerly, holding his bruised stomach, and looked around. “Dean! Cas?”

He was just in time to watch Castiel in action. The smaller man must have moved as fast as the Flash, because he had already disarmed Bela by the time Sam was alert enough to focus. Sam’s heart lurched when he realised that Bela and Castiel were teetering precariously, right on the edge of the stone parapet that surrounded the roof space. Sam staggered to his feet as quickly as he could manage, and ran towards them. Stretching out a hand, Sam was just in time to grab Castiel’s Bear costume’s cloak as the two of them toppled over the edge. Sam hung onto Castiel cloak with both hands, trying to block out Bela’s scream and the sight of her plummeting into the abyss.

A warm hand grasped his shoulder, then arms were reaching round him to help pull a red-faced and choking Castiel back up.

“I don’t know what made Bela such a two-faced bitch, but that was poetic justice, if you ask me,” Dean rasped, his breath warm on Sam’s cheek. The three of them collapsed in a huddle, and Sam struggled to get his breath back. Castiel recovered first, and extracted himself from the puppy-pile, while Sam lay there grinning.

“That was amazing!” he knew he was babbling but he couldn’t help it; the adrenaline was still pumping and he was as excited as a kid to think he’d been in a real adventure, that they’d fought a real evil villainess and survived.

“Dean,” Castiel said, his voice full of a concern that immediately poured icy water over Sam’s euphoric mood. Sam rolled over onto his knees and finally registered Dean’s silence. Shit. When Dean had come over to assist him with Castiel, Sam had assumed that Bela’s shot must have gone wide. It was all too evident now that Sam had assumed wrong.

Dean was very pale, so that the freckles Sam had barely noticed before were now standing out starkly. It made his brother look very young and vulnerable. Gone was the bravado and confidence of before, and in its place was a man too young to die. Dean had one hand pressed to his ribs, and Sam could see the wet shine of blood soaking through the costume’s dark material and through Dean’s fingers.

Sam wanted to shout at Castiel then. Why hadn’t the stupid angels, whoever they were, made sure Dean was protected with a bulletproof suit, like he had been? He rounded on Castiel.

“Help him, dammit,” he said, though his voice rose up at the end, so his demand sounded more like the desperate plea it really was. Castiel was already moving, unfastening several of the pouches on his Marishka the Bear’s costume. He nodded at Sam. “The Red Bear is always prepared in your stories, is she not? Why are you surprised that I am too?”

Castiel took a brief moment to give Sam’s arm a squeeze before turning away to crouch down next to Dean. It was more testing than reassuring. “What was that for?” Sam sputtered.

“Your muscles are well defined, strong. Do you work out?”

“Yes, I do actually, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

Cas didn’t look up from his business-like assessment of Dean’s chest injury. “The wings I gave you are made of a new titanium alloy, super light but also super strong. They should be capable of carrying two men - perhaps for a lesser distance than they could carry one - but still sufficient to get you both across the river and into Städtanderwandwesten, which as you know, is in the Federal Republic.”

Dean was shaking his head and struggling to sit up, but Castiel kept him down easily with one hand on the undamaged side of Dean’s chest. That alone told Sam how badly wounded his brother was. Whatever they were going to do, they needed to do it fast, or Sam was going to lose his brother again before he’d even had a chance to get to know him. Sam knelt next to Cas, ignoring the pain in his stomach. Goddamn, but he felt like a horse had kicked him.

“What do you need me to do?” he said.

“Oh, hell no,” Dean protested, and Sam could hear the pain in his voice. “It’s too risky. Sam’s never flown in a wing-suit like this before, and I’ll bet those super-strong wings have never been tested for that kind of weight-load either, have they?”

Castiel didn’t reply, but produced a large roll of duct tape and spoke instead to Sam. “I’m going to dress the wound to stop the worst of the bleeding. We mustn’t prevent air being sucked through the wound – the lung is punctured and most likely collapsed, so this is the least risky course of action. Then I will need to tape Dean to you…”

Dean interrupted again. “You can’t do this, Cas, it’s fucking crazy. You need to get Sam out of here quick as possible - you know someone will be up here soon to investigate Bela’s swan dive. The best thing to do is take my flying suit for yourself and guide Sam across the border. Leave me here. Kazukov won’t let me die so easy, so I’ll be in hospital before you know it.”

Castiel stared at Dean. Sam was kind of glad that piercing blue gaze wasn’t turned on him right now because, boy, that look could’ve cut diamonds better than an Iceman laser.

“Once the SOSS get their hands on you, Dean, you are a dead man. They will either execute you outright, or just send you to the medical research facility at Butugichag for the so-called scientists to experiment on. Is that what you want?”

Even Sam could tell Dean’s response was pure bluster. “I’m too valuable to kill, they’ve got too much invested in me. And besides, I’ll just tell them Sam shot me, and pushed Bela over the edge…”

It was Castiel’s turn to interrupt. “Dean Winchester, if you do not shut up and co-operate, believe me, the first thing I will tape up will be your mouth.”

Sam couldn’t help a pained chuckle at the chagrined expression on Dean’s face, but Castiel’s words did the trick, and Dean stopped coming up with reasons to leave him behind. Castiel fiddled around with Dean’s suit and detached the wings – “Don’t want these deploying by accident,” he said, and Dean nodded before leaning back into Sam to allow Castiel room to work.

Castiel was quick, padding underneath the tape with gauze to create a space for the lung to breathe round the bullet hole. To Sam’s untutored eye, there seemed to be an awful lot of blood. By the time Castiel had finished, even though the whole process had probably only taken a few minutes, Dean was even whiter than before, and barely hanging onto consciousness. Sam thought it was probably a mercy, as Cas didn’t seem to have any painkillers in any of his handy pouches. Between them, Cas and Sam hoisted Dean onto his feet and shuffled him right up to the low parapet facing the chasm and their route to the West and freedom.

Sam tried not to remember how pathetic and helpless Bela had looked, tiny as a doll, as she fell.

“Dean, put your arms round Sam,” Cas instructed, and Dean somehow managed to reach around Sam’s waist. Sam immediately had to wrap his own arms around his brother, when even that brief exertion left Dean panting and trembling with the effort required to stay upright – tremors that Sam couldn’t pretend to ignore.

“Is this really the best position?” Dean mumbled into Sam’s chest, as their bodies pressed up against each other. Sam had to agree, it was embarrassingly intimate, especially in their matching Condorman suits, which didn’t leave much to the imagination. He could feel his cheeks burning, and it wasn’t from the autumn chill in the air. He missed Castiel’s reply; he was too busy supressing any inappropriate, involuntary reactions to having another warm body so damn close that he could feel every heart beat. Especially when the warm body belonged to a brother he’d only just met. Sometimes he hated being a guy.

A few minutes later and Cas had the two of them taped so firmly together so Sam couldn’t move without taking Dean with him. The duct tape was round their legs, ankles and chests, and for good measure Cas had bound Dean’s wrists together behind Sam’s back. There was no way Dean could crash now, without Sam crashing along with him. And that just wasn’t going to happen. Sam was determined. So many nights he’d dreamed of flying, all he had to do now was recreate that feeling of blissful confidence that always filled him when he was in one of those dreams.

A piece of cake.

“Oh please, don’t mention food now, I’m starving,” Dean muttered, and Sam blushed, wondering what other inner thoughts he’d just vocalised.

Castiel moved behind Sam and took hold of Sam’s arms, guiding him up onto the parapet. Fortunately it was a wide, substantial, _fin de siècle_ stone construction, or this part of the plan could have been kyboshed by a pretty spectacular fall. As it was, Dean’s weight strapped to Sam’s front made him feel heavy and unbalanced, but being a few inches taller, he could at least see forward over Dean’s head. It reminded Sam of when he was little and his Dad had let him stand on his feet and walked him around. Except Dean was the one standing on Sam’s feet, and Dean must weigh at least one hundred and eighty pounds of solid muscle.

Sam felt Cas do something in the middle of his back and then his wings unfurled with a loud snap. Suddenly the chilly air that had felt like a light breeze before was tugging hard at the length of wing stretched out on either side, and -- holy shit. They were really doing this. Sam was filled with heady exhilaration that briefly overwhelmed his anxiety. He was really going to fly.

Cas fiddled some more while holding Sam steady against the buffeting breeze. He seemed to be stroking his hands over every seam and joint of the frame and canopy, and Dean grunted in approval.

“He’s checking there’s nothing bent or out of alignment,” Dean explained, and Sam nodded. That was reassuring, though the evident pain slurring Dean’s speech wasn’t. Sam was even more impatient to launch now, and get his brother to safety.

Castiel guided Sam’s hands onto a bar that was attached to the wide canopy, and then knelt down to strap Sam’s ankles into some sort of extra harness that must now be attached to the part that was already fastened round Sam’s crotch. Stuck in this standing position, and with Dean in the way, Sam couldn’t really see what was happening, he just had to trust the angel.

With Dean’s face pressed into Sam’s chest, he was immediately aware when his brother’s breathing grew more stertorous. He was pretty sure nobody’s exhales should crackle like that.

“Hurry, Cas,” Sam said, trying to keep the panic he was feeling out of his voice. Castiel seemed to understand though, and didn’t call him on it.

Castiel came round to stand up on the stone rail next to the brothers, keeping a reassuring grip on Sam’s arm.

“Dean, you’ll have to guide Sam as you go. Like you said, Sam’s never flown a glider suit before, right, Sam?”

Sam felt Dean’s muscles tense at that, and he shared a look with the Angel. “Yeah, man. I’ve parachuted, but never done anything like this before,” Sam said, not mentioning his dreams. Somehow he didn’t think the other two would count those as relevant experience.

“Fine, fine. I got this,” Dean said, though he was wheezing badly. “You have to tell me what you see, kid. Be my eyes.”

Sam nodded, then realised Dean couldn’t really see that without twisting his head. “Okay. You know this location better than I do. I’ll be relying on you to find us a safe place to land. And I’ve no idea how to steer this thing so…”

“So I need to help you with that, I get it.”

Cas gave Sam another knowing look – having Dean involved was necessary for those reasons, yes, but it was also an attempt to give Dean a reason to stay awake and alive.

“Enough talk,” Castiel said, releasing his grip on Sam. “Time to go.”

The wind buffeted Sam’s wings. Then there was a light push in the centre of his back and he was leaning forward, and out, and down, down, down.

:::

Dean fought off a wave of dizziness as he felt Sam lean, then topple over the edge. He was falling backwards into space, nothing but air between him and the river far below. Air that he could do with for expanding his chest, instead of pressing uselessly against his back. He’d long since lost all feeling in his hands and all strength from his arms, so had nothing to do but cling to the last shreds of consciousness. With his face squashed into Sam’s broad chest, he was spared the view of the bottom of the chasm hurtling to meet them, which was probably a mercy. He did however feel it through Sam’s body when the aerodynamics of their wings kicked in, and the lift of the thermals meant they began to fly rather than fall. Then Sam was whooping in sheer joy over the flapping of the canopy, and in any other circumstances, Dean would have been happy for him. Hell, he’d have been happy for himself, to be flying free.

As it was, he had to trust Sam, which had been an easy thing to do when he had two feet on the ground (albeit being held up by fucking tape, on account of the gaping hole in his chest, but he wasn’t going to quibble). It was a whole other matter when he was relying on a novice to fly them both to safety from the top of a thousand foot drop.

Sam twisted his head down.

“Dean, I need you to help me now, man. Where do I aim for?”

Dean closed his eyes, visualising from memory the landscape he knew was unfolding fast below them. The river would be dark at the bottom of the gorge, forming the natural border used when the German territories were divided, and that the GDR had fortified when the Iron Curtain came down. The Bundesrepublik side was some six hundred feet lower than the GDR side, so that wouldn’t give Sam much time to glide before he would have to land, unless they caught a good thermal and gained a lot of height. And to be honest, Dean didn’t really want that to happen – prolonging their flight just meant more time for him to bleed out or suffocate, and he was barely holding onto consciousness as it was.  Added to which, more height meant more danger when it came to managing their descent.

What they needed was somewhere Sam could make a safe landing clear of built-up areas, given that Sam’s legs were not only tucked into the suits’ hang-glider/wing suit’s harness but also encumbered by Dean’s legs. Dean thanked the god he didn’t believe in that the weather was so calm. At least Sam didn’t have to worry about blustery winds knocking them off course. There was no point in either of them worrying about the East German guards spotting them. If that had been going to happen, they would already be full of holes.

“Steer us using your body, and try and keep us going straight, nothing fancy,” Dean instructed. “You need to feel the wings, how they are lifting, reacting to any wind. Don’t grip the bar too tight. Hold steady and we should fly straight.” He stopped to catch a breath, hearing his lung crackling worse than a faulty radio. He didn’t have too much time left, but he was going to make sure Sam was safe if it was the last thing he did.

“Feels good, Sammy. Just keep this up, nice light touch…don’t pull or push at the bar, and tell me what you can see below,” Dean said.

He tried to concentrate and map a course in his head as Sam described the landscape scrolling by. He knew there was a park near the edge of the town, but he didn’t want to risk Sam changing course. Keeping a nice straight, relatively slow glide was their best bet. These wings might be strong, but Dean doubted they were designed to carry the combined weight of the Winchester boys. Maintaining sufficient speed to carry their weight was key. If the glider’s nose dropped, they would pick up speed, if Sam pulled back and lifted the nose up, they could stall and drop like a stone.

“There are some apartment blocks coming up, I think we are ok to clear them, but we’re losing altitude,” Sam’s voice was carefully even, but Dean could feel the tension threaded through Sam’s every muscle, and he could hear the too-loud thud of Sam’s heart beating though the bones of his chest.

Dean needed to drill the basics into Sam as quickly as he could, before the darkness gathering at the edges of his vision swamped him. Before breathing became too hard with one working lung. As it was, talking was using up air he didn’t have, making black spots gather in his limited view of Sam’s chest and neck.

“S’important, Sammy…If you need to turn, you have to pick up speed first by pushing the bar gently, and dipping the nose. When we speed up, move your body a small amount to the left and you’ll feel the left wing drop, and the glider will pivot – you’ll keep going in that direction until you correct it, bring your body back to the centre…” Dean choked on the blood in his mouth, setting off a total whiteout as pain that shot through his whole left side. He tried desperately to stay with Sam, but it was more than any human could have managed.

His eyelids closed like the doors of a prison, with a finality Dean couldn’t fight.

:::

Castiel wanted to stay and watch until the Winchester boys landed, but he had no binoculars to track them with, and besides, he couldn’t afford to linger. He didn’t have the luxury of a wing suit or the option of escape. Castiel only had his orders, his duty, and the cause. All of which he’d betrayed by stopping Dean Winchester from killing Sam. His task had been to sit back and watch the Bear kill his brother, then help Dean escape to be debriefed in the West. Zachariah was going to be mightily displeased with Castiel.

When he turned to leave, he discovered he’d run out of time after all.

:::
    
    
        **_  
    Thursday November 27 1986: 13:10 Städtanderwandwesten, FDR. Krankenhaus von St. Radegund._
        **
      

Dean swam up towards the shimmering light. The lead weights tied to his ankles fought against his natural buoyancy and tried to drag him back down into the suffocating darkness. His head broke the surface and he finally drew a deep breath. And promptly choked.

“Easy, Dean, take it easy, it’s ok,” a voice he knew but couldn’t place was saying, and that, together with the firm but gentle pressure of two large hands steadying his shaking shoulders, eventually soothed him. His breathing calmed and his heart slowed the hammering that was threatening to shake his ribs apart. Fuck, that hurt. He fought hard against the heaviness that was pressing down on his whole body, and opened his eyes.

Brightness, then a blur of unidentifiable colours that eventually coalesced into something vaguely human that was looming over him. Two somethings actually, he concluded after a couple of seconds passed, one decidedly taller than the other.

He remembered something important.

“S’m?” he managed, before the dryness in his throat locked him down again, and he dissolved into another painful fit of coughing. A hand appeared under his nose, pressing a paper cup of ice chips to his lips, and he swallowed gratefully.

“Small sips, son,” said an unfamiliar gruff voice, and Dean automatically obeyed. Exhausted from that little effort, Dean decided talking was a bad idea right now, and settled for hanging onto consciousness long enough to work out what was going on. He was in hospital, that much was clear from the brief focussed glimpse he’d gained of anodyne décor, combined with the faint pervading scents of antiseptic and boiled cabbage. That, and the instantly recognisable beeping of a heart monitor he assumed belonged to him. He was too tired to check.

“Is he out again?” he heard Sam ask, and the anxiety in his little brother’s voice was incentive enough to make him reopen eyes he hadn’t even realised had closed. It was worth the effort to see Sam’s smile.

“Oh hey, Dean, good to see you awake at last.”

Dean couldn’t risk another coughing fit by speaking again, so he just raised an eyebrow. It was a bit scary how much energy that took, all by itself. Miraculously, Sam understood.

“You’ve been unconscious for five days, Dean.” Sam sat down and took Dean’s hand, careful not to jostle the IV. “We thought we’d lost you a couple of times,” he continued, and Dean gave him a pass for the handholding due to the tremor in Sam’s voice. It was nothing to do with the way his own heart kind of glowed at his brother’s touch. Nope. He refocused with an effort as he realised Sam had continued talking, and he was missing important information. A spy should always be alert, whatever the circumstances.

“…you’d lost such a lot of blood, and your lung collapsed. We made a bit of a crash landing on the other side of the river, near the edge of town in the end. But the West Germans were great; even our crazy costumes didn’t faze them at all. As soon as I got you safely to hospital, I managed to call Dad, and he got a flight straight away.”

Dean felt another warm hand on his other arm, and his gaze flew around to land on the other shape he’d been aware of as he’d surfaced. His father. John Winchester. The face gazing down at him with shining dark eyes wasn’t how he remembered his Dad, of course it wasn’t. The last time he’d seen John Winchester, Dean had only been eight years old, and that version of John had been some twenty years younger than this one. This John’s face was grooved with lines that spoke of sorrow and loss and years of grieving, but surrounding the eyes were the laughter lines Dean remembered, and damned if his sight wasn’t blurring with tears. Fucking morphine, messing with his emotions. He was a hardened assassin, not a freaking girl.

His head was buzzing with so many questions – had Dad ever tried to find Mom and him? Did Sam remember him at all? What had they both been doing with their lives while Dean had been murdering and spying for the Soviets? Would they ever forgive him for the things he’d done? After all, he wasn’t sure he could forgive himself, so why should they?

But he was sinking under the weight of it all; the bed was turning into cotton candy, sticky and soft. He struggled desperately to stay awake. The morphine drip winked at him, telling him resistance was futile, and the edges of the room folded in. Then through the sweet pink fog, Dean could feel Dad’s hand heavy on his arm, and Sam’s hand gripping his own, and for the first time since he’d stepped back across the border as a deadly spy-assassin, he realised he wasn’t alone.

And he let go.

 

**_Thursday December 7 1986: Lawrence, Kansas_ **

 

John Winchester certainly knew how to pull strings. Dean had only been conscious for a day before he and Sam found themselves on a military plane on their way back to the States. Back home, Sam told him with the biggest, dopiest grin pasted onto his face. Dean couldn’t get his head round that idea – that he had a real home. The last time Dean had been in the USA, he’d killed two men – a diplomat and a CIA agent. He’d done it swiftly, efficiently, clinically. He really couldn’t see the Pentagon or the CIA rolling out the red carpet to welcome Dean ‘the Bear’ Akulov to his new apple-pie life in America, knowing he had all that blood on his hands. He fully expected to find himself taken into custody and never let go the moment he landed on American soil, so he was very surprised when all he was met with was a small medical team. The attending checked his vitals and agreed he was fit enough go home to Lawrence, Kansas, with his family.

Dean spent the next few days more asleep than awake, so he didn’t have much time to brood, or to tell Sam or Dad about his fears for his future.

Plus, as it turned out, having a little brother again after all these years was exhausting. Sam had boundless energy, and a disturbingly optimistic outlook that was totally at odds with Dean’s Russian-learned pessimism.

 

“So I’m going to write some of this into the next edition of Condorman, what do you think, Dean?”

Dean lit up at the thought, then quickly covered it with a cough. Wouldn’t do to have the kid getting to big-headed. Of course, pretend coughing wasn’t such a great idea when recovering from a severe lung trauma, and it was a few painful moments before Dean managed to get his breathing back under control. By which time a thought had struck him.

“Wait a minute, when you say write our story into the comic, who am I going to be?”

Sam pushed his stupidly long hair back out of his eyes, smiling.  Dean shook his head.

“No, no, I still can’t believe you wrote me as a red-headed chick, Sammy. That’s just wrong, man. It’s perverted – I’m not Castiel to go round bucking gender stereotypical norms, you know?”

“I don’t know, Dean, I think you made a very attractive, kick-ass villain. And I got the green eyes right, didn’t I?”

“You’ve only been my little brother for five minutes and you are already a pain in my butt,” Dean grumbled. “Stupid, childish comic books.”

“Hey, you were the one who was desperate to go to a convention dressed as one of those stupid, childish comic book characters – and you can’t pretend it was for a mission, because you’ve already confessed your secret Condorman passions to me,” Sam was virtually crowing, and the grin on his face was wider than the Atlantic. Dean could have drowned in it.

 

_**Tuesday August 4 1987: Siberia** _

The Angels refused to save Castiel from a sentence of two years hard labour. Zachariah said it was his own fault; he should have been more disciplined. There was no room in the dissident organisation for such poor discipline – it only got people killed.  Castiel’s sister, Ana, somehow managed to ensure Castiel wasn’t sent to the terrible radioactive mines that had killed Mary Winchester, or to one of the one of the dreaded medical research centres. So there was that. And Cas was grateful.

 

Nine months later, worn down and worn out, Castiel was even more grateful when Condorman and the Bear turned up and sprang him. But that’s a story for another day.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my lovely beta, Firesign 10!
> 
>  
> 
> [ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/housefullofbooks/16386450710)  
> 
> 
> The dates in this fic are based on fact – i.e. the Berlin Wall was erected in 1961, and the Iron Curtain, as the West called it, did come down tighter than ever from that date. The Communist states were concerned about the so-called Brain Drain, and so literally overnight, the new barriers went up. In this AU however, I’m supposing the wall effectively runs all along the east/west border in a much more physical way than it actually did. I’ve also made up a completely fictional town so that the convention can be set somewhere suitable for a high altitude hang-glide escape.
> 
> This town became Städtanderwandwesten and Städtanderwandosten – literally ‘town on the wall western’ and ‘town on the wall eastern’. I imagined this to be somewhere north of Berlin.
> 
> The Soviet OSS is also fictional – I just used a Russian translation of _very secret service_ , which becomes очень секретная служба (ochen' sekretnaya sluzhba). Apologies for any errors in translation here, I was relying on Google! This SOSS is not supposed to have any connection or bear any resemblance to the Office of Strategic Services that was the precursor to the CIA.
> 
>  
> 
>   
> Butugichag gulag was a real place, though by the 1980s it was no longer in use. It existed from 1945-55. It was a mining gulag mostly for uranium, though also tin and gold. The area was already known as Death Valley from well before anyone knew about uranium and its deadly properties. Miners worked without any protection and life expectancy was merely months. It was also a top-secret medical experimentation facility. (Info from Wikipedia)  
> 
> 
>  
> 
> Preispodnyaya is made up – I just wanted a name for another facility that Mary could have been moved to, and this word means hell.
> 
>  
> 
> The Angel group of underground fighters, dissidents and counter revolutionaries is also completely fictional.
> 
>  
> 
>  


End file.
